So Tired of FIOS Slow Downs At Night

So as many people have stated, amazingly my 75/75 FIOS Grinds to a halt from 7pm-11pm. Also, amazingly when I run the Verizon hosted Speed Test I get my advertised speeds! I love when they point to the speed test that is hosted on their network as the benchmark to whether or not my connection is working as it's supposed to work. Whenever I run any speedtest off the network my download speeds are < 5 Mbps. I can't watch anything that streams at night when I want to watch it.

I love calling FIOS Tech Support and being told that the fact that my FIOS is slow at night is related to the following:

Too Many People Using Wireless Around Me
Misconfigured Wireless Settings
The Fact That I Am Using Wireless Instead of Being Connected to the Router Directly

I also love being told to download the oh so helpful in-home agent to diagnose my issues. That has not helped one bit in the diagnosis of any of the issues.

I love the Tier 1 tech support agent named Justin that told me it wasn't possible for me to receive less than the advertised speeds because I am on a Fiber Optic Network, and it's not susceptible to capacity issues. I also love the fact that he chastised me for not having something I could wire directly to the router. In the world we live in today hardwired connections are going away and all of my equipment, including my laptop are completely wireless.

What I don't love is not being given the courtesy of an admission by Verizon that they don't have enough bandwidth getting on and off their network to support their advertised speeds during peak hours. It's that simple, and you can see in thread after thread on this board and on DSLReports, that this is a common complaint.

If anyone has any advice as to a magic phone number to get to a real network engineer or someone that cares about this issue please let me know. Thanks.

Accepted answers

DavidPlantz

Two things I recomend doing. One is get a usb eathernet adaptor from Amazon.com hook that to your router and run some speed tests. I bought one for around 15 bucks as my Macbook Pro does not have an eathenet port. The other is that your router may have issues that make the slow down worse. Also use the 5ghz wifi setting as it has much better performance than the 2.4ghz band.

All comments

eljefe2

There are enough posts reporting slow speeds in the evening that I do believe there is a FiOS problem is some areas. However, despite your belief that we've entered a wireless generation, the fact is that at this time you still need a wired connection to isolate the problem as local to you or point to a system problem at the ISP.

It seems unlikely that a slow down would be happening every evening because of local wireless problems but it's possible. There are a lot of things that can interfere with wireless signals and it's conceivable that one of those things may be happening every evening. Maybe some device a neighbor runs, or...who knows?

Why don't you do the right troubleshooting step, get an Ethernet patch cord, and connect your laptop to your router in the evening, just for testing purposes? I'm not talking about a great deal of trouble or expense and you don't have to leave the laptop plugged in after the test(s).

It's just a good troubleshooting step.

rplatt1

We have 2 MacBook Airs and they do not come with an Ethernet Port.

The one wired device we have in the house, an Apple TV, works great all day long and then when we sit down to watch streamed shows between 7-11pm we can't...the shows freeze and stop running. Unfortunately there are no network diagnostics on that device.

osnv

I am in the same boat with rplatt as I am sure are may others. The difference is that I do have a direct wired connection to a router and can pull good speeds using Verizion speed testing Web page. Unfortunately, they don't host the resources I use 🙂 Speedtest.net gives me 5Mbps using a Washington DC server on a 75/75 plan which is totally unacceptable. It has absolutely nothing to do with my equipment since Verizon site gives me correct speed AND the day-time speeds are perfectly normal. Verizon provided me with a ridiculous explanation that once the traffic leaves their network they are not responsible for the speed (????). Well, maybe I should pay them 1/10th of my bill for getting 1/10th of the advertised speed? The forums here and dslreports are full of complaints and yet Verizon continues not only deny the issue, but also not willing to investigate it. Great way to keep the customers happy or pile up FCC and FTC complaints...

rplatt1

OK...so all day long 75/75 no issues...and it's Friday night...so everyone is hopping on Netflic etc. so now we are down to 7 Mbps. Just amazing.

Headhunter06

I'm not even getting 5% of the speed I am paying for. Here in Northern Virginia on my 75/75 connection, my present download speed is a whopping 2.42 mb/s (! !) at 8:30PM. And that is fairly standard for me any night between about 7PM and midnight. This has been going on for months -- nee, years -- and I am getting really frustrated. In another discussion here on the Verizon pages, I noted that I have done the Customer Service ying-yang several times and had tech support out to the house several times. Each time they come during the day and can't find a problem --- Of course they don't find anything wrong during daylight hours when download and uploads routinely blow past 75/75. But each time they visit, they give me a new router or maybe even a new ONT (yep), probably just as a pacifier rather than because the component is actually a culprit. Just a few weeks ago, Verizon Tech Support stopped by my house and told me that Verizon is "well aware of the speed slow down issue" and "in the coming months" would be upgrading equipment at its Central Office hubs to improve the situation. Whether or not that is true, it is the ultimate cop out because it doesn't do anything to say WHEN the problem will be fixed. I mean, come on now. Seriously?

Anyway, I am now doing 2-3 Speed Tests and Network Diagnostics each day to build my data set. Since Verizon does not seem at all interetsted in my situation, I am seriously considering whether to take Verizon to small claims court using their own Speed Test data to prove breach of contract and get their attention. When I win, I will call the local news stations here in Washington DC to make the point of "little guy beats big Verizon". My goal is not to make any serious money, but rather to get a symbolic win that might goad others to try the same legal trick (maybe even the big Class Action lawyers), shame Verizon's network infrastructure folks, and thus to force Verizon to fix this issue lest the big class action guys force a really expensive fight.

I just find it astonishing that I am not getting even 5% of what I pay for. I'm flabergassted.

db909

@rplatt wrote:
We have 2 MacBook Airs and they do not come with an Ethernet Port.

Spend $10 and get an USB ethernet adapter. It will be well worth it.

osnv

What's even more astonishing is the fact that not a single Verizon person on Verizon forum responded to this thread. It clearly indicates they are aware of this issue. When a company intentionally does not deliver according to the terms of agreement with a customer and keeps collecting payments in full, would not this constitute a breach of contract?

ElizabethS

This is a peer to peer support forum. Verizon does not monitor it for technical issues.

jdest2015

Was considering an upgrade from 25/25, getting frustrating slowdowns using my AppleTV with ESPN app. Checked speedtest on Iphone and it's 5/5! Beats the 1/1 I got with Comcast DSL at my last place with their slowdowns. Thanks for the info on same experiences with 75/75...definitely not upgrading now. Wish I could get Google Fiber, anything except for the 1980's FIOS TV interface...what a joke.

CRobGauth

This must really be an issue in certain areas.

I just ran this test (http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/112135) and got 55+ each way on my 50/50 plan.

Lowest I have seen in months is 28Mb.

bitbender

I think the packets going to the speed test servers are not hindered nor is the path up to youtube , netflix etc. Traceroute shows 7 hops to it.

However the path down from these servers magically have 30 steps on traceroute 😉

VAHomeOwner

I have a similar problem. The FIOS technicicans only come out between 8 am and 5pm. The slowdown and bottleneck occurs between 7-9pm. I get 25% of the bandwidth I am paying for at that time. I want FIOS to fix the problem but I may just be forced to go back to Comcast. Maybe enough people have left Comcast in my area that the speeds will be good.

CRobGauth

Run your test to speedtest.verizon.net when it is good and then again when it is bad.

Run it from a device that is hard wired to router.

If performance is fine in both instances, that means that connection to Verizon network is ok.

There could be non Verizon issues in your area (say a local Internet gateway) causing the issue.

If your evening test fails, you can use that data to contact support.

DavidPlantz

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